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Friday 9 October 2015

Day 214: Putting things off

One of my most prominent and tenacious behaviour patterns is procrastination. I remember once writing a blog on it with self-forgiveness, where I was forgiving myself for procrastinating, but afterwards I didn't change. Today I realised why. Because I am not living the word procrastination. This is an English word that is only part of my knowledge. I know what it means and I know how to use it, but I don't say to myself: "I'm gonna procrastinate now." What I do live is the statement: "I don't feel like it right now." There's many other statements that make up my procrastination pattern, like:
"I still have time to do it.
I will do it later.
If I don't do it now, the consequences are not going to be that bad, I hope.
I will do this first thing in the morning, but now I am going to do something I enjoy."
I'm going to tackle this pattern for real now.



I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to, whenever I have work, duties and obligations, and feel resistance towards doing them, use the statements "I do not feel like it right now, I still have time to do it, I will do it later, I hope the consequences are not going to be that bad if I don't do it now, I will do this first thing in the morning, but now I am going to do something I enjoy" in order to persuade myself and justify not doing them immediately.

When and as I see myself trying to use those statements to persuade myself into and justify not doing my work, obligations and duties, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I am compromising myself and the quality of my life by putting off my work until the last minute, where I will often be late with completing it, therefore I commit myself to push myself and push through the resistance I might be feeling to get the work done in time.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look for excuses, justifications and explanations for why it is ok for me to be late with work or fulfilling my obligations/duties.

I've always taken my duties and obligations lightly, ever since elementary school. I never really took them seriously, I never really worried about them, because all my capacity for worrying was used up by the situation at home. Compared to what was going on at home, the consequences of not doing my schoolwork on time seemed laughably small. I used to worry that my mother one day simply wouldn't come home anymore. Schoolwork was the last thing on my mind. That is why I never developed self-discipline.
In my teenage years I started using the situation at home as an excuse to not do my schoolwork or to get special treatment, when I learned that teachers and adults in general tend to be more lenient, when they know what is going on in my life. I remember being really surprised, when this method didn't work on our social worker in high school.
This all lead to me never developing real working skills, which is biting me in the ass today, and I want to rectify it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel sorry for myself for having a hard situation at home, and in that feeling sorry for myself say "fuckit, I'm not going to do my obligations, what's the point anyway", not realising and understanding at the time that I should be doing my schoolwork for myself and not because it is being asked of me by adults.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take my obligations/duties/work lightly and avoid doing them until the last minute or until it is already too late.

When and as I see myself wanting to wait with my duties/work/obligations and wanting to put them off to a later time, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I am with this sort of behaviour compromising myself, because other people involved usually do not have the patience/understanding for why I am being late with my work, therefore I commit myself to breathe through the resistance towards work and direct myself towards doing it in the first possible time slot I have available for it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive my life situation as hard in order to use it as an excuse to not do my work/duties/obligations immediately when I have the chance.

When and as I see myself trying to justify and look for excuses for not doing my work/duties/obligations immediately when I can by perceiving that my life situation is hard, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I am with this compromising my own life and well-being, therefore I commit  myself to removing the excuses, stabilizing myself in breath and directing myself towards getting my work done.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe/think/perceive that I am not an organized person and that I lack self-discipline to do all my work on time, instead of realising and understanding that I am creating myself to be that way by believing it, therefore I commit myself to immediately stop myself with breath, when I notice myself thinking this about myself, and directing myself towards completing my work in the necessary time frame.

I also always had a great resistance towards schedules, because I perceive that they take freedom and spontaneity away from me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hate and loathe schedules and scheduling my days, my life, because I perceived/believed that scheduling takes the freedom and spontaneity out of life. Within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist making schedules for myself, instead of realising and understanding that they make life a lot easier, because then I can follow a list instead of deciding in the moment what I will be doing next, and losing time with it.

When and as I see myself resisting making a schedule for myself, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that making a schedule will make things much easier for me, therefore I commit myself to remove my resistances and direct myself to make the schedule and follow it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think/believe/perceive that I am a person who does not enjoy following schedules, not realising and understanding that I am manifesting and creating myself that way, thus I am limiting myself to a set of beliefs about what I should or shouldn't do, enjoy and be like.

When and as I see myself thinking/believing/perceiving that I do not enjoy making and following schedules, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I have never given myself the opportunity to expand myself by making schedules for myself and see how they impact my life, therefore I commit myself to try scheduling out for myself.

In the next blog I will be focusing on my tendency to not follow schedules and previously made arrangements with other people.

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